An ordinary commercial street in Woking, Surrey. In the distance, the sound of a power tool can be heard. I walk up the driveway, past a white van, and press the doorbell. After some time, the door opens, Christine, a striking lady in her forties with a platinum bob and bubbly South London accent, ushers me into the main office, and offers me a cup of tea. Her husband, Bills, a big, affable man, gets up from his desk and shakes me genially by the hand. Christine regards me coolly. Meet Mr and Mrs Brenham a husband and wife team who run a detective agency branch under license form www.wilsonsconsultancy.comBill is a retired detective chief inspector, who once led a murder squad in South-east London. Christine is her husband’s sidekick. In the next office is a listening device disguised as a phone charger, and a pen that contains a camera. The anonymous-looking van outside turns out to be a surveillance vehicle, complete with a green jerry can in which to urinate. “Christine thinks it’s disgusting,” says Bill, “but I like things the old fashioned way.” The world of private detectives is a strange one. Thanks to Glenn Mulcaire, Steve Whittamore and a host of others connected to the News of the World hacking scandal, private eyes have never been lower in the public’s estimation. But they are not all hi-tech villains and grubby bin-raiders. As part of a Radio 4 documentary I recently met a few of the other estimated 10,000 investigators operating in Britain.

Maliki confirms Syrian planes have bombed Isis positions Iraq's prime minister says he welcomes raid on Sunni militants as Iran and US intensify their presence in the country

Agencies in Baghdad

Wilsons Consultancy Thursday 26 June 2014 14.55 BST

Watching Nouri al-Maliki's speech on television at a cafe in Baghdad. The PM said he had not requested the air strikes. Photograph: Karim Kadim/APThe Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, said on Thursday that he welcomed a Syrian air strike on Sunni militant positions as it left both countries "winners".The Syrian warplanes struck near the border crossing in the town of Qaim on Tuesday, hitting the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis), which seeks to carve out a purist Islamic enclave across the Syria-Iraq border.Details are, however, sketchy. The White House spokesman Joshua Earnest earlier said Washington had "no reason to dispute" reports that Syria had struck within Iraqi territory but Maliki told the BBC that Bashar Assad's airforce had stuck to its side of the border."There was no coordination involved, but we welcome this action. We welcome any Syrian strike against Isis, because this group targets both Iraq and Syria ... But we didn't make any request from Syria. They carry out their strikes and we carry out ours. The final winners are our two countries," he said in an interview with BBC Arabic.An initial translation supplied by the BBC said Maliki had confirmed Syrian airstrikes in Iraq but this was later corrected to Syria.Syria's state news agency also denied that Damascus had carried out attacks in Iraq. It said its source "refuted allegations made by malicious media outlets who claimed that the Syrian air force shelled areas within the borders of Iraq".Syrian opposition activists have meanwhile claimed that the Qaim strikes missed Isis's main bases and killed 30 civilians. Sabah Karkhout, head of Iraq's Anbar provincial council, told CNN that Tuesday's air attacks had hit inside Iraq in Rutba, al-Walid and Al-Qaim.The raid, which puts Assad and Maliki in alignment against a common enemy, comes as Iran and the US are intensifying their presence in Iraq. 300 US military advisers arrived in Baghdad this week and surveillance drones are flying over northern Iraq. US officials said Iran was also flying drones in the country, controlling them from an airfield in Baghdad. The officials said they believed the drones were surveillance aircraft only, but could not rule out that they may be armed.A senior Iraqi intelligence official said Iran was secretly supplying the Iraqi security forces with weapons, including rockets, heavy machine guns and multiple rocket launchers. "Iraq is in a grave crisis and the sword is on its neck, so is it even conceivable that we turn down the hand outstretched to us?" said the official.The intelligence-gathering and arms supplies come on the heels of a visit to Baghdad this month by one of Iran's most powerful generals, Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Revolutionary Guard's Quds Force, to bolster the defences of the Iraqi military and the Shia militias that he has armed and trained.The involvement of Syria and Iran in Iraq suggests a growing cooperation among the three Shia-led governments in response to the raging Sunni insurgency.The US secretary of state, John Kerry, on Wednesday warned of the dangers of the Isis insurgency spreading into a larger conflict. "We've made it clear to everyone in the region that we don't need anything to take place that might exacerbate the sectarian divisions that are already at a heightened level of tension," he told a meeting of Nato foreign ministers in Brussels. "It's already important that nothing take place that contributes to the extremism or could act as a flash point with respect to the sectarian divide."

What good can come of something labeled a “dark pool”?BarclaysBarclays may find out the answer soon, and it may mean trouble.New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is said to be preparing a lawsuit against the British bank over improper use of its dark pool, a private trading platform where activity is concealed from the public.Schneiderman is expected to accuse Barclays of misrepresenting the number of high frequency traders in its dark pool platform, and lying about marketing materials. Further, he may argue the bank favors high frequency traders and tries to attract them by giving more advantages over other traders in the dark pool.Dark pools have come under fire lately for their lack of transparency, and some argue the secretive trades can create price inefficiencies.Proponents argue that dark pools offer institutional investors a place to buy and sell large amounts of stock without worrying about moving the market, or other traders shifting the price.Schneiderman’s office appears to be looking at whether Barclays’s dark pool platform was actually behaving to protect investors in that manner, or using the system to its advantage for other purposes.The NY AG is expected to make public details of the lawsuit against Barclays later this afternoon.Barclays was the first big bank to get caught up in the global Libor rigging scandal back in July 2012. The firm paid $453 million to settle the case, and its CEO Bob Diamond was forced to resign over the matter

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Jenny Renwick is based in New York and had worked for Wilsons Consultancy for four years in our public relations department. in association with anthony bryan books. -private detective agency uk - Pearson -Wilson publishing uk private detective agency